Remy Coeytaux is a family physician who developed a keen interest in integrative medicine early in his career. Less than 1 month after completing his family medicine residency at Maine Medical Center in Portland, Maine, just as he was starting his 2-year, Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholar training, he decided to base his research career on clinical trials of acupuncture. This, in turn, inspired him to obtain a PhD in Epidemiology at the UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health so as to acquire skills and credibility as a research methodologist specializing in acupuncture clinical trials.

Fast-forwarding a few years, Remy founded the UNC Family Medicine Center Acupuncture Center at UNC Chapel Hill in 2002. In 2006 he co-founded a private, community-based integrative health center incorporated as Integrative Health, Education and Learning (IHEAL) Center, Inc. (IHEAL is now doing business as Chapel Hill Doctors Healthcare Center). IHEAL serves as the professional home for an extraordinary integrative medicine physician (Julie McGregor, MD), a primary care practice, 3 licensed acupuncturists, a gynecologist, a PhD-level nutritionist, a gastroenterologist, a Healing Touch provider, an ophthalmologist, a physiatrist, and a counselor. IHEAL is thriving and welcomes new, integratively-minded healthcare providers to diversify its offerings of professional services to the community.

Remy joined the faculty of Duke University in 2008, where he spent the subsequent 8 ½ years conducting research at the Evidence-based Practice Center at the Duke Clinical Research Institute. Thanks to the generosity of the Bravewell Collaborative, Remy completed the Integrative Medicine Fellowship training program at the University of Arizona in 2012. This was a transformative and immensely rewarding experience. Among the many invaluable insights that this experience offered was the critical importance of self-care and kindness to one’s self, and to others. These notions of taking the time to care for one’s own health and spiritual well-being, combined with kindness to one’s self and others, informs the core of both Remy’s practice of medicine and practice in life.

Remy now holds his dream job. In February, 2017 he became the Caryl J Guth, MD Chair in Integrative Medicine and Director of the Center for Integrative Medicine at Wake Forest School of Medicine in Winston-Salem, NC. In this capacity, he was given the exciting opportunity to create, from scratch, and alongside his longtime friend and colleague, Russ Greenfield, MD (a member of Dr. Weil’s first cohort of Integrative Medicine Fellows at the University of Arizona) the Integrative Medicine Clinic at Highland Oaks at Wake Forest Baptist Health. Russ will soon be stepping down as Medical Director of this clinic to pursue a wonderful new career opportunity. We have recently launched a national search for a new Medical Director. This position comes with a faculty appointment at Wake Forest School of Medicine. Remy encourages his University of Arizona Integrative Medicine Fellowship colleagues to consider moving to North Carolina to assume the leadership role of this new and thriving clinic. The Center for Integrative Medicine at Wake Forest School of Medicine has also launched a 2-year, post-doctoral research fellowship in integrative medicine, with Deanna Befus, PhD, as our first Research Fellow. We’ll be recruiting a new Fellow soon for 2019-2021.

Remy currently serves as Professor of Family and Community Medicine at Wake Forest School of Medicine and as Co-Editor-in-Chief, along with Dr. Suzanne Danhauer, of the medical journal, Global Advances in Health and Medicine. This journal was recently acquired by the Consortium of Academic Health Centers for Integrative Medicine. In this capacity, Remy and Suzanne want to encourage colleagues in the integrative medicine field to submit papers to Global Advances, with the goal of advancing the science, practice, and philosophy of integrative medicine.

Remy feels that his journey as an integrative medicine physician is just beginning. This is an exceptionally opportune time to contribute to the transformation of healthcare delivery systems locally, state-wide, nationally, and world-wide. Integrative medicine has a tremendous amount to offer. We are all contributing to the improvement of our healthcare systems in our own, unique ways. By sharing our unique perspectives, insights, and experiences with each other and collaborating among ourselves and with a wide variety of other stakeholders, we can, and we will, make our world a better place.